Review – The Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel (Doomsday, Book 2) by KJ Charles (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy/Romance
Length: 333 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Release Date: eptember 19, 2023
ASIN: B0BNW638GQ
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Doomsday series
Source: Borrowed ebook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Major Rufus d’Aumesty has unexpectedly become the Earl of Oxney, master of a remote Norman manor on the edge of the infamous Romney Marsh. There he’s beset on all sides, his position contested both by his greedy uncle and by Luke Doomsday, son of a notorious smuggling clan.
The earl and the smuggler should be natural enemies, but cocksure, enragingly competent Luke is a trained secretary and expert schemer—exactly the sort of man Rufus needs by his side. Before long, Luke becomes an unexpected ally…and the lover Rufus had never hoped to find.
But Luke came to Stone Manor with an ulterior motive, one he’s desperate to keep hidden even from the lord he can’t resist. As the lies accumulate and family secrets threaten to destroy everything they hold dear, master and man find themselves forced to decide whose side they’re really on…and what they’re willing to do for love.”
Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Doomsday series. I borrowed this on ebook from my library.
Thoughts: I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the first book in this series. This starts out really, really slow without the mystery and action of the first book. About 60% of the way in, things do pick up some and the story starts to tie back in to some of the story elements from the first book.
The story alternates POV between Rufus (a retired army major turned Earl) and Luke (Doomsday from the first book who is smart as a whip and got formal schooling). Rufus has a mess on his hands when he inherits Oxney; the existing family hates him, the finances are a mess, and the people who work the land are pissed that everything is becoming so run down. Enter Luke, a very organized and smart young man who offers to work as a secretary for Rufus to sort everything out. Only there are a couple wrinkles. Luke might be the long-lost son of the previous Earl of Oxney and, as such, have an inheritance claim over Rufus and of course, being a Doomsday, Luke has convoluted plan of his own.
This moves really slow, and a lot of the first half of the book is about Rufus and Luke scrapping through records to hunt down information. We also deal a lot with Rufus’ truly awful family, and I didn’t enjoy them as characters.
I did really enjoy Luke and Rufus as characters; some of the side characters (Berry and Emily) were really fun as well. Things do pick up in the second half of the book.
There are a number of steamy male, male scenes in here…which follows with the first book. They are well done and well described. I don’t generally seek out a lot of male, male romance with explicit scenes but it is fine to read once in a while. I actually don’t read a ton of books with explicit sex scenes in general, so there’s that.
Will I read future books in this series? I am not sure right now. I would give the first part of this book 3 stars and the second half 4 stars. In the end, for sites that only allow full star reviews, I ended up rounding down to 3 stars. I almost stopped reading this a couple of times because there just wasn’t much happening.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first book in this series. The characters are well done, as are the romance scenes, but the story was very slow for the first half of the book. Things picked up and got more exciting in the second half. I am undecided right now about if I will continue with this series. Pure historical romance with a lot of explicit sex isn’t something I read a lot of and I don’t really need another series like this on my list to keep up with.
